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History: We have a fairly steady customer base via catalog and CD distribution, an occassional ad in a mag, an even rarer exposure wiht commercials in related Cable programs. BUt most of the sales are derived from Phone calls and walk-in sales. We also recieve fax orders that are comparable to web-orders. Our 'mail order' is an ever shrinking part of the business. Only 2 people have control over my work, other than me, and those 2 conflict on ideas and approvals all the time. The one whose scroll adornsmy check, gets priority, since it his company. But he takes forever to give the ok and is technologically impaired. The other is semi-tech savvy, oversees mosts ops in the company, and can make a decision quickly. I can implement something in a matter of minutes, but last time I thought ahead, I was actually suspended for the remainder of the day (where am I, JR. High?).
BTW-our product line is over 80,000 parts (In 7 different catalogs), and some of the stuff we manufacture exclusivly, is sold to our competition in bulk price deals.
Request: I have been posting, but mostly lurking for awhile. And now I am at an 'end-pass'. I need to start whittling doen the bloated ppc, and improve SER without resorting to a SEO co. I have some ideas, but am looking for a new twist, or at the least, some ideas that concur with my thouights.
How best to de-bloat the monster PPC has become (highest drainers are also the highest referrers).
Targeting on keywords sounds great, but how far shouold I go. I can easily get into 10's of 1000's of pages, if given a copy writer, and a weekend.
At heart I am more of a HTML, Flash and Photoshop kinda guy. I make 'em pretty, make 'em flow and make 'em work.
So any grand suggestions regarding the best approach to handling bloated AdWords, overfed Overture, and sub standard SEO (in appropiate thread of course) are welcome and sought. I am not looking to solve my problems in a day, but have not found any one bes tsolution in the threads, yet.
Now my head hurts form thinking to much.
Do you have access to a good copy writer for PPC ads -- especially for AdWords? I've seen copy changes make the response go up or down by 1000%. AdWords are like marketing haiku - it takes a consumer oriented poet to get the best results.
One of the best AdWords campaigns I'm managing is based on some customer input! Data-mine those end-user emails for words and phrases. This also can give you some surprising new directions for organic SEO results.
ROI is very hard to track right now. It took 3 weeks to get our server logs purged and back up and running (they apparantly stopped logging in 11/2002, when the log size reached 2GB). I finally had to put my foot down with the #2 in the CO. and dealt with our provider directly. What makes things worse is our SHOPPING end is handled by a 3rd party firm and server back east. So I can only compare total web-orders (native and targeted) with CTR.
Or is there another way?
You might start by dropping any PPC ads for very specific items that already return in the top 2 or 3 places of the organic results. But I wouldn't suggest major surgery on the big $$$ terms until you've gathered some data, which it sounds like you're doing now.
I've never worked a catalog that big myself, but if I were going to, I would try to slice it up by the 80/20 rule. In this case, I'd look for maybe the top 2 or 3% and focus tight on those - they're the ones that can make or break you.
BTW-our product line is over 80,000 parts (In 7 different catalogs), and some of the stuff we manufacture exclusivly, is sold to our competition in bulk price deals.
comon. this is webmasterworld!
